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SPEECH 



OF 



ORRIS S. FERUY, OF CONNECTICUT. 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 10, 1860. 



Tlie House being in Committee of the Wliole 
on the state of the Union, and having under 
consideration the President's aanual message — 
Mr. FERRY said: 

Mr. Chairman, in adopting the principles 
which govern my public conduct, I am not 
aware that I am actuated by any desire to ad- 
vance the interests of one section of the coun- 
try beyond those of any other. I have sought 
always to advocate such measures, and such 
ouly, as, in my deliberate judgment, were cal- 
culated to promote the welfare of the entire 
Confederacy. I have felt it to be my duty to 
act in political affairs not merely for the pres- 
ent, but for the future also ; not only for the 
twenty-five millions of the present generation, 
but for the forty millions of the next; not only 
for the thirty-lour Suites of to-day, but for the 
fifty sovereignties which some of us may live to 
Bee confederated under the Constitution of the 
RepuV'lic ; in a word, not to be a politician 
simply, but, in so far as I am able, to be a 
statesman. It is with such motives that I have 
made my choice between the great political or- 
ganizations which divide the public sentiment 
of the conntry, and my only antagonisms are 
those v,fhich necessarily arise when I find my 
cherished principles assailed; schemes, which 
seem to me destructive, pressed into legislative 
enaotmenta ; or measures which I deem bene- 
ficial strenuously resisted. I have no contro- 
versy with the people of the South ; I am heart- 
ily tired of the sectional watch-words which 
have so long resounded in our ears, and I shall 
not permit myself to be drawn into a dispute 
upon local aud geographical distinctions. My 
controversy is with those who guide the action 
of the Democratic party ; it is there that I find 
the sources of the evils which afliict us, the 
fouQtftius of treasonable sentiment, and the 



causes which have led the Government of this 
Republic into a well-nigh universal betrayal of 
the common rights of humanity. And when I 
speak of the Democratic party, I mean the or- 
ganization which is now called by that name. 
There was a Democratic party once, sir, of a 
far different character, and which spoke with a 
widely different utterance. There was a Dem- 
ocratic party once, from whose platform all 
mention of the inalienable rights of man was 
not erased, and to whose ears freedom had not 
become a hateful sound. That party is no 
more ; I speak not oi' it ; it is the living issues 
and the living organizations of the present 
which I choose to meet. 

For the first eight weeks of the session, tho 
Democratic party in this House occupied its 
time, almost without interruption, in the discus- 
sion of the slavery question. The President de- 
votes a large portion of his message to the 
same topic. The Vice President has been home 
to Kentucky, and, from the legislative halls_ of 
that State, has addressed an essay to the nation 
upon the same subject. A Democratic Senator 
from Ohio introduced into the Senate, as the 
first measure of the session, a resolution open- 
intr anew the whole of this vexed question. 
The consequence, if not the object, of these 
proceedings, is seen in a wide-spread agitation 
thToughout the country, disturbing its business 
interests, and endangering the peace aud good 
order of society. The discussion which was 
forced upon this House has had a large share 
in producing these unhappy results; nor has 
the manner in which it has been conducted by 
gentlemen upon the other side of the llall been 
calculated to diminish its pernicious effects. 
With a few honorable exceptions, they have 
suffered passion to usurp the place of reason; 
have substituted vituoeration for argument, and 






fibusive epithets for facts. I shall not follow 
their example. If I cannot preserve the ordi- 
nary courtesies of decent private life, even in 
mentioning in debate the political designation 
of an opponent, I will hold my peace. 

But, sir, the Republican members of this 
body would be negligent of their duty to the 
true and loyal men who sent them here, if they 
bhould not reply, to some extent aud at a (ittiag 
time, to these unprecedented aud unlbunded 
assaults upou them. It is in partial dischar^'e 
of this duty that I now address the House, in 
so doing, I shall endeavor to state fairly what 
seem to me the necessary results of the doc- 
trines avowed by the leadin<^ members of the 
L)emocratic party on this floor, to controvert 
those doctrines as well as I am able to do, and 
to set forth frankly my own views upou the 
questions at issue. The time has come when 
we should fully understand each other ; and I 
am sure that all honorable gentlemen will agree 
with me, that we ought no longer to deceive 
ourselves, or delude the people with specious 
equivocations and juggling j/latforms. 

The prevalent opinion among those who 
framed the Constitution of this Government 
was that, in political economy, slavery was to 
be regarded as an evil ; to some extent, indeed, 
a necessary evil, in communities where it had 
existed for many generations, and become in- 
terwoven with the social habits and business 
interests; but still an evil, whose peaceable 
and legal removal was an object of earnest de- 
sire. In relation to its original establishment 
in a new society, the opinion was more decided; 
such establishment was juslly considered a 
great moral wrong, a sin against God, and a 
crime against humanity, as well as repugnant 
to the principles of a sound political economy. 
And such continued to be the general opinion 
of the country for more than a generation after 
the adoption of the Constitutiuu. I shall not 
weary the House with quotations in conlirma- 
tion of these statements ; the prools of their 
correctness will readily occur to all intelligent 
men. The Democratic party of today de- 
nounces these sentiments as false and fanatical. 
It holds, as an abstract proposition, that prop- 
erty in man exists of natural right ; no more 
to be condemned in morals or deprecated in 
policy than property in cattle or merchandise ; 
that the system of American slavery, which is 
based upon this property in man, is also, and 
without reference to collateral circumstances, 
right — right, not merely where it exists as an 
involuntary inheritance from preceding genera- 
tions, but rightfully to be originally established 
in a community, as a component part of its 
domestic institutions. And not only this, but 
that, as a system, it is expedient; productive 
of vast benefits where it already exists, and 
calculated to produce the greatest good in so- 
cieties where, under favoring influences of soil 
and climate, it may be newly established. 

The Deniocratic party, moreover, insists that 



this property in man is distinctly recognised 
and protected by the Constitution of the United 
States ; that wherever the term " property " is 
used in that instrument, it embraces slaves as 
truly as any object of legitimate ov/nership; 
and that every conclusion of legal or logical 
sequence from the language of the Constitution, 
which may apply to merchandise of any de- 
scription, is equally applicable to this. I am 
I aware that there is a section of the Democratic 
j party which does not concur in all of the fore- 
I going views, and I shall have occasion to con- 
! sider its position in the coiJrse of my remarks. 
The influence of this portion in public affairs 
is, however, at present, comparatively small. 
The Executive department of the Government, 
the Democratic members of the Federal Judi- 
ciary, and an overwhelming majority of the 
Democratic members of both houses of Con- 
gress, embrace the opinions which I have now 
stated. In the discussions in the other wing 
of the Capitol, and upon this floor, I have heard 
these doctrines set forth scores of times as 
component parts of the Democratic creed, and 
they have been received almost without a word 
of disapprobation from any one claiming to 
belong to the Democratic organization. In- 
deed, I think that it may properly be assumed 
that, but for the stern resistance which is made 
to these principles by the Republican party, 
they would be practically carried out, in all 
their logical results, by all the departments of 
the Federal Government. It is proper, there- 
fore, that I should briefly indicate those results. 
In the first place, then, if these principles be 
correct, there is no justification or palliation for 
the laws of the United States against the Afri- 
can slave trade. If property in man, as in 
merchandise, exists of natural right, if its es- 
tablishment in new communities is just aud 
expedient, if the Constitution applies to it the 
same universal guaranty which it applies to all 
objects of legitimate ownership, then human 
beings are as proper an article of commerce as 
cotton; the statute which declares the slave 
trade piracy is a hideous iniquity, and its execu- 
tion would be judicial murder. Again, assuming 
the correctness of the principles already enun- 
ciated, it is the imperative duty of Congress to 
provide forthwith, by further legislation, for the 
protection of property in slaves in the Territo- 
ries of the United States. Whatever else may 
be said of this species of property, it is certainly 
true that it is regarded by the greater portion 
of Christendom with peculiar repugnance. The 
emigration which flows into the Territories is 
very largely composed of men who share in 
this feeling, and the consequence has been 
that slaveholders have felt that their estate in 
their human chattels was entirely insecure, 
when once removed beyond the protection of 
State sovereignty. To say that the Constitu- 
tion guaranties to the owner of property the 
absolute enjoyment of his rights therein, 
throughout the Federal possessions, and then 



(o 'i' 



tc refuse a remedy for the violation of those 
rights, is but a solemn mockery. Nor is this 
all. The same reasonincr necessarily interposes 
the limitations of the Constitution apainst the 
capacity of the people of a Territory to abolish 
slavery when they come to make their State 
Constitution ; and every State in this Union, 
M'hich has em^rsed from the Territorial con- 
dition since 1789, and, in so doinor, has incor- 
jiorated into its Constitution what 1 think I may 
{iroperly call the anti-slavery clause, and has 
Liiherto relied upon that clause as a sufficient 
security for its free system, is to-day in its legal 
condition, according to this exposition of the 
Constitution of the United States, as much a 
slave State as ^^outh Carolina or Georgia. For 
where, I may ask, did the people, while in their 
Territorial condition, as they must have been 
while in the act of making their Constitution, 
acquire their power to abolish slavery jvithin 
their borders ? From any inherent right so to 
do ? This is vehemently denied. From any 
act of Congress ? It is expressly affirmed that 
Congress can confer no such power. From 
the Constitution of the United States ? The 
answer is an unqualified negative. Whence, 
then, does this power come? The gentleman 
from Texas, [Mr. Reagan,] in his very able 
speech, gave the only answer of which, upon 
the Democratic theory, thft question is suscep- 
tible. The power is a '''' rcvohitionanj^'' one; 
against all constitutions, all laws, all govern- 
mental authority ; it comes by " revolution." 
The whole Democratic Territorial policy is thus 
reduced to a system, not of order, but disorder; 
not of regulated law, but of chronic anarchy; 
not of peace and stability, but of "revolution." 
Such are the fundamental principles of the 
Democratic party, and such are their logical 
results. 1 meet them in their very beginnings, 
for it is there that we shall find the starting 
point of divergence between the two great par- 
ties upon this subject. I affirm that property 
in man does not and cannot exist of natural 
right. It fills me with unspeakable mortifica- 
tion to be compelled, in this enlightened age 
and this Christian Republic, to go back to 
demonstrate the primary truths of common 
morality. But the necessity exists. The Dem- 
ocratic organization, extending into every town 
and village in the Confederacy, is fast becom- 
ing debauched and demoralized in regard to 
this whole matter. Its leaders teach that sla- 
very is right ; and the masses everywhere are 
being gradually led — by a course downward 
in morals and backward in civilization — to 
adopt that teaching as true. If this doctrine 
fihall become the predominant belief throughout 
the greater portion of the country, and systems 
of bondage come to be justified, and approved i 
by the masses of the people, then I believe 
that real freedom will speedily thereafter dis- 
appear from the Republic. I repeat, tlierefore, 
tliat property in slaves does not and cannot 
ei^ist of natural right. There is no voice of 



inspiration asserting in man such dominion 
over his fellow-man, like that which gave to 
our race " dominion over the fish of the sea, 
and over the fowl of the air, and over every 
living thing that moveth upon the face of the 
earth ;" aad we are, therefore, left to rest our 
judgment upon the just instincts of the hu- 
man heart, and the honest guidance of an en- 
licrhtened conscience. And to these I appeal. 
There is not a literature of any people or age 
which does not depict liberty as better than 
life, and slavery as worse than death. There 
is not a man in this House who would not, 
sooner lie down in his grave than become a 
bondman ; there is not one of us who would 
not rather see the face of his child upturned 
to him, dead in its coffin, than to see that child 
sold as a slave. No promises of sufficient food 
and decent apparel and comfortable shelter, of 
care in sickness and support in old age, could 
change this preference; and if long ages of 
servitude have produced, in isolated instances, 
a different choice, the common sense of man- 
kind justly finds in such phenomena a more 
conclusive proof of the brutalizing influences 
of bondage. The laws which are made for the 
security of this species of property alFord fur- 
ther evidence that it is based upon wrong. It 
is impossible that any relation, right in itself, 
should require such utterly repulsive enact- 
ments for its maintenance in a civilized socie- 
ty. I have, to some extent, looked into the 
statutes and judicial decisions of those com- 
munities where the institution prevails, and I 
find (hat they compose a merciless, rfimorseless, 
terrible machinery for changing a man into a 
brute. There is but one step wanting to mal<:e 
the work complete ; they have not yet legal- 
ized n:iurder. 1 find judges of the highest tribu- 
nals declaring that this fearful system is ab- 
solutely necessary for the preservation of prop- 
erty in man ; and when they have proved that 
proposition, they have demonstrated that such 
property cannot originally exist of natura*. 
right. 

But it is said that, however this may be, we 
must take things as tliey are ; that property in 
man is recognised in the Constitution of the 
United States as legally right, and entitled to 
the same legal protection as other property, 
wherever that Constitution is the organic lav/ 
of the community ; that the Constitution is the 
organic law of the community throughout all 
the Federal possessions ; that this practical 
reco,7uition of the legal rectitude of slavery is 
even more potent than would be the universal 
acknowledgment of the right of property in 
man ; for, as things actually are in our system 
of government, wherever the Constitution pr' - 
vails, except where checked and limited by 
State sovereignty, there is thus superadded tn 
natural right the guaranty of positive law, I 
might reply to thit assumption, that the be!i» 
expounders of constitutional law in this country 
have held, with great unanimity, that the Con- 



gtitution of the United States does not become 
a part of tue Territorial law until made so by 
act of Congress, or by the change from the 
Territorial to the State condition. But it is 
unnecessary to follow that line of argument, 
and it would lead me too far from ray purpose. 
My answer to the assumption which I have 
mentioned is, that the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States nowhere recognises any natural right 
of property in man, and nowhere creates such 
legal right. The Constitution purposely, care- 
fully, guardedly, ifrnorcs the very existence of 
such property. The slave is represented on 
this floor as a jjer.ion^ not as a chattel ; tlie 
clause for the rendition of fugitives does not 
purport to restore merchandise to its owner, but 
a debtor to his creditor; representation and di- 
rect taxation are to be apportioned among the 
several States according to an enumeration of 
persons, not according to an enrollment of 
property. All that the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States does in reference to this species of 
property in the States where it exists is to let 
it alone 5 the protection which it enjoys from 
Federal interference is the protection of State 
sovereignty, and not of the Constitution ; and 
its assurance of the efficiency of that protection 
is found in the provision that "the powers not 
' delegated to the Constitution, nor prohibited 
' by it to the States, are reserved to the States 

* respectively, or Ui the people." The Consti- 
tution nowhere undertakes to designate what 
shall be regarded as property ; it does not de- 
fine properly at all. That which the local sov- 
ereignty treats as property within its jurisdic- 
tion, is just so far treated as property by the 
Constitution; if claimed to be property outside 
of that jurisdiction, it must possess the natural, 
generic characteristics of property, which I have 
shown slavery does not. 

It is, in my judgment, a libel npon the Con- 
stitution to say that slavery exists anywhere by 
virtue of its provisions. If ever there was an 
instrument of Government in the world that 
breathed the very spirit of freedom, it is the 
Constitution of the United States. It was made 
"to establish justice and to secure the blessings 

* of liberty ; " it declares that " the privilege of 
' the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus- 

* pended," except in cases of rebellion or inva- 
sion ; that " no bill of attainder or ex post Jado 
law shall be passed ; " that " no title of nobility 
shall be granted by the United States ; " it sub- 
jects the chief Executive Magistrate to impeach- 
ment; it provides that "the trial of all crimes, 
' except in cases of impeachment, shall be by 

* jury " of the vicinage ; it guaranties " to every 

* State in this Union a republican form of gov- 

* ernmeut ; " it forbids the enactment of any 
law by the Federal Legislature " respecting an 
' establishment of religion, or prohibiting the 

* free exercise thereof, or abridging the free- 
' dom of speech or of the press, or the right of 
' the people peaceably to assemble and lo peti- 

* tiou the Government for a lediess of griev- 



' ances ; " it declares that " the right of the peo- 
' pie to keep and bear arms shall not be in- 
' fringed ; that the right of the people to be se- 
' cure in their persons, houses, papers, and ef- 
' fects, against unreasonable searches and seiz- 
' ures shall not be violated ; " that " no person 
' shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
' without due process of law ; '' and then, to 
cover all possible contingencies of danger to 
the liberties of individuals, it declares that " the 
' enunciation, in the Constitution, of certain 
' rights, shall not be construed to deny or dis- * 
'parage others retained by the people ; " and 
there is no word in that instrument which, even 
indirectly, implies that the meaning and appli- 
cation of these general terms are to be restrict- 
pd by any considerations of race or lineage. 
No, sir, not one ; and those who go about to 
tind such restriction ai:e compelled to resort 
to inairection and outside interpretation to ac- 
complish their purpose. Every page of the 
Constitution of the United States is radiant 
with the light of universal liberty. He who 
would find there pretext or excuse for bondage, 
must turn his back upon that light, and grope 
his way ajmong the shadows of distorted and 
doubtful construction. 

Why, sir, what were the statesmen of the last 
century about, when they affixed their signa- 
tures to the instrument that severed the political 
ties which had bound the colonies to Great 
Britain? What were they doing when they 
framed this Constitution about which we dis- 
pute so much? "Our institutions," answers 
Reverdy Johnson, in his pamphlet, "are redo- 
' lent of freedom. For freedom our ancestors 
' contended during seven years of trial. It waa 
' /u'j-teachingsthat inspired and supported them 
' during their fearful struggle." Freedom, I ask, 
then — tor whom, or for what? For the owners 
of capital, or the possessors of the soil, alone ? 
Not at all, sir ; not at all. The freedom whose 
teachings inspired and supported our ancestors 
was the freedom of man, of all races, in all 
ranks, and of every lineage. It is the distin- 
guishing characteristic of our revolutionary 
war, that it was fought upon this principle. 
Universal equality in political rights, and the 
indefeasible title of all men to social and civil 
liberty, were the foundations of the great argu- 
ment by which it was justilied. Other nations, 
in other times, had contended for the rights of 
kings and princes. The wars which history 
recounts, had been the struggles of Governmcnis 
for conquest or defence. In their beginning 
and in their ending, little thought had been 
taken for the masses who bore their burdens ; 
the causes of bolh lay hidden in the caprice of 
monarchs, the pride of aristocracies, the avarice 
of capitalists, or the exigencies of commerce. 

With our ikthers the case was very different. 
From whatever causes ol ui!Justifiab!e taxation 
the collision may originally have occurred, in 
the solemn document wliich they put forth as 
their justification for taking up arms, they 



based everything upon the rij:;ht of man, by 
virtue of his humanity, to political equality 
and civil liberty. It has been said that the 
language used had no reference to any other 
than the white race ; I can bring you, sir, hun- 
dreds of expressions in the writings of the rev- 
olutionary fathers and of the framers of the 
Constitution, wherein slavery is spoken of as 
antagonistic to the principles of the Declara- 
tion ; every one of which expressions is utterly 
meaningless, unless those principles were in- 
tended to be as universal in their application 
as the race of man. The doctrine of the 
Declaration has been called a "glittering gen- 
erality;" but two of those to whose hands v/as 
committed the drafting of that instrument were 
Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman ; and 
neither the shrewd sense of the Boston printer 
nor the sterling judgment of the Connecticut 
shoemaker was likely to be betrayed into the 
adoption of rhetorical formulas. In all nations, 
and in all ages, the masses of mankind have 
been, as they ever must be, composed of those 
who live by the labor of their hands ; the theory 
of kingly and aristocratic rule has been, and of 
American Democracy now is, that for those 
masses servitude is the normal, fitting, and safe 
condilion ; the theory of the statesmen of 1776 
uiid of the Rep'iblicans of 1860 is, that for those 
masses liberty is right, and safest, and best. 

I appreciate the ditficulties which surround 
the [iraclical application of the latter theory in 
a society where slavery has existed for centu- 
ries, and become interwoven with the social 
relations and the interests of capital ; and I re- 
joice that no political duty demands of me a 
solution of those difficulties; but that such 
practical application ought to be made, when- 
ever and wherever a new community is being es- 
tablished, I cannot doubt; and both history and 
the language of the Constitution, as already cited, 
prove conclusively that such also was the opinion 
of the founders of this Government. In the af- 
fairs of States aiid nations, as in those of individ- 
uals, no violation of the principles of moral rec- 
titude can ever be practically expedient. Evil, 
however fair it may seem, and to whatever ex- 
tent it may be disguised by specious names, 
will in the end work out only evil. And such, 
if I may believe the concurrent testimony of 
many of the purest patriots, the most upright 
statesmen, and the most judicious citizens of 
that portion of the Confederacy in which the 
institution exists, has been its practical result 
there. As I before remarked, I will not weary 
the House with stale quotations, but if I can 
place any reliance upon the evidence of such 
men as Jefferson, Madison, and George Ma- 
son, or, at a later period, of McDowell, Faulk- 
ner, and Thomas Marshall, all capable eye-wit- 
nesses of the effects which they portray, and 
all loyal and upright Southern gentlemen, sla- 
very is the fruitful parent of ignorance, poverty, 
and vice, destructive of those essential elements 
of all true popular liberty, freedom of speech, 



of the press, and of political action, and espe- 
cially injurious to the comfort and happiness of 
the laboring classes of freemen. 

It is no reply to these statements, to say that 
the opinions of the last century were formed 
while the slave trade was in full operation ; that 
infamous traffic had long ceased at the time of 
the memorable debate in the Virginia House 
of Delegates in 1832, but the language of the 
statesmen of that Commonwealth was as deci- 
ded, at the later period, as that of their fathers 
had been. The able and truthful m.en, whom 
I have named, spoke o? facts, as they existed 
under their own observation in 1787 and 1832. 
If they told the truth, those facts remain as the 
basis of legitimate argument, however much a 
new generation may have departed from the 
speculative faith of their fathers. 

To these considerations of expediency should 
be added another, which operates very power- 
fully upon my political conduct. While I have 
no particular apprehension for the safety of the 
Union, I am yet fully sensible of the manifold 
advantages which we derive from its existence. 
Every measure which has even a remote tend- 
ency to weaken the ties which l)ind the Confed- 
eracy together, should be sternly opposed ; and 
I know of no measure, whose tendencies in that 
direction are more obvious to a reflecting mind, 
than the schemes now so prevalent for the ex- 
tension of slavery. Upon this topic, permit me 
to quote the opinions of Governor McDowell, 
of Virginia, a statesman whose high intellect- 
ual attainments were only equalled by the gen- 
erous qualities of his heart. He says : 

" The existence of slavery creates a political interest in this 
Union, -wliicli is, of all others, the most positive ; an interest 
which, in relation to those who do not possess it, is adversa- 
ry and exclusive ; one v^hich marks the manners of our 
conntry by a corresjiondent distinction, audis sowing broad- 
cast aniongst ns, both in our official and private intercourse, 
the seeds of unkindness and suspicion. On this interest 
geographical parties have been formed ; on its maintcnanca 
or restriction the bitterest struggles have been waged ; and, 
as it contains an ingredient of poliUcal power in our Federal 
cou7tcih, it will always be the subject of struggle. * * * 
Slaveholding and nou-slaveholdiug must necessarily consti- 
tute the chajacteristic feature of our country — must neces- 
sarily form the broad and indivisible interest upon which 
parties will combine, and which will and docs compreheml 
in the jealousies which now surround it, tho smothered and 
powerful, but, I trust, not tlie irresistible causes of future 
dismemberment. In all of t't? other crils, then, slavcri/ super- 
adds the still further one of being a cause of national dissen- 
sion, of being a fixed and repulsiK clement between the differ- 
ent memliers of our Ilepublv: — ilself impelling tvilh strong 
tendency, and aggravating all smaller tendencies to political 
distrust, alienalion, and liostility." 

The Virginia statesman from whose lips 
these words of almost prophetic wisdom fell in 
1832, had the discernment to perceive, and the 
manliness to declare, that if disunion was to be 
apprehended at all, the causes of apprehension 
were to be found, not in opposition to slavery, 
but in slavery itself. To give those causes 
greater force and permanence by expanding 
and strengthening this disorganizing system, is 
to act the part of the madman who applies the 
torch to his own habitation. 

A very able gentleman from Mississippi, 
[Mr. Lamar,J to whom I always listen with 



pleasure, however much I may dissent from 
his opinions, in the course of an interlocutory 
discussion some weeks since, asserted that 
those who are striving for the expansion of sla- 
very are " seel\ing colonization and empire in 
' a manner not inconsistent with the rights or 
' interests of a single freeman north of jNIason 
* and Dixon's line," and asked, with great ear- 
nestness of manner, what there was in that for 
us to complain of. To which I answer : your 
proposition, from your standpoint, may seem 
conclusive; from mine, it is utterly fj.llacious. 
Grant that we both vseek expansion and coloni- 
zation ; we do it under a common Government 
and a common flag, and are both responsible 
[or the character and efiects of the expansion 
of each. We seek to carry with us no system 
of social or political economy which either you 
or we believe to be hateful to God or unjust to 
man ; you desire to spread abroad a system 
which we believe to be both, and to do so un- 
der the protection of a Government for which 
we are responsible as well as you. We are 
both acting, not for the present only, but for 
the immediate and the distant future. Our 
children, as well as yours, are to remember, 
with unavailing shame and sorrow, that their 
fathers entailed upon them an institution whose 
evil tendencies 1 have already portrayed. When 
the descendants of the slaves whom you shall 
export to Chihuahua or Tamaulipas, shall feel 
v/ilhin them those aspirations for liberty which, 
eoouer or later, will kindle in every human 
heart, it must be our arms, as well as yours, 
that shall quench those aspirations in darkness 
and blood. Upon us, as well as upon you, will 
devolve the duty of betraying the fugitive from 
Sonora or Colorado. You tell us exultingly 
that the negro has twenty Ropresentatives upon 
this floor ; it is our concern, as well as yours, 
when you demand the admission of a half score 
more to represent the degraded bondmen of 
Cuba. 

Having now attempted to show that the 
Democratic party, as an organization, is com- 
mitted to the principle that slavery is in ac- 
cordance with natural right, and is so expressly 
recognised and guarantied, to use the phrase 
of tile day, by the Constitution of the United 
States, that there is thereby superadded to the 
obligations of natural right, the authority of 
positive law for its expansion everywhere in 
the Federal Territories; that, in addition to 
the sanctions of natural right and positive law, 
a true expediency justifies such expansion; 
and having further attempted to show that all 
these doctrines are unsound in theory, wrong 
in morals and vicious in tendency, 1 am next 
led to consider the position of that portion of 
tiic Democratic organization which stands with- 
out the pale of full party communion upon 
these topics. I suppose that I may, with pro- 
priety, look to the opinions most recently avow- 
ed by Mr. Douglas, for the principles which 
are embraced by this class of politicians ; and, 



if I truly understand those opinions, they are, 
to my mind, more detestable in morals, and 
worse in logic, than the doctrines which I havo 
already considered. I have said that the start- 
ing-point of divergence between the great par- 
tics is found in the question, " Is it right or 
wrong to e&tablish slavery ? " The Democrat 
in full communion asserts the former, and 
reasons properly enough upon his theory of 
morality ; I aver the latt.'r, and endeavor to 
reason in like manner. But to Mr. Douglas, 
right and wrong, in this affair, are matters of 
profound indillerence. He ignores morality 
altogether. His confession of faith is a politi- 
cal atlieism. He evades the question of expe- 
diency in like manner. Is siavery the bless- 
ing that its friends claim it to be, or a curse, 
as its enemies assert. How is it to affect the 
prosperity of the future States of the Confede- 
racy, the happiness of the coming generations 
of the people? To such inquiries he returns 
no answer ; in fac^, he asserts that he does not 
care how they are answered. For aught that 
he knows or cares, slavery is just as good as 
freedom, freedom just as bad as slavery; each 
no better and no worse than the other. A po- 
sition more vicious in morals or more utterly 
devoid of the first elements of statesmanship, I 
have never encountered in political study. It 
is an attempt to arbitrate between conflicting 
principles, by renouncing all principle. It 
strives to adjust permament antagonisms by 
the shallowest of temporary expedients. It is 
exactly adapted to the wants of swindling poli- 
ticians and lying demagogues. It proceeds 
from a source where selfish ambition, untiring 
energy, shufQing inconsistency, and brazea 
assurance, are the chief qualities which excite 
the public attention. It is now seeking to 
evade responsibility, by shifting to the judicial 
the proper duties of the legislative department. 
Faithless to everything except personal ambi- 
tion, it has taught all parlies and all sections 
that it cannot be trusted beyond the contracted 
circle of its own selfish interests. It is destined 
to be crushed out, as it ought to be crushed 
out, in the struggle which is going on betweea 
parties thoroughly in earnest, and each anima- 
ted by convictions of right and duty. 

In conclusion, I will indicate the measures 
which seem to me proper, in order to prevent 
the further extension of slavery. My own prin- 
ciples, as already set forth, clearly forbid all 
Federal interference with the institution in the 
Slates where it exists. Abolitionists, properly 
so called, denounce the Constitution, because 
it does not give to the General Government the 
power of intervention; and denounce us, be- 
cause, notwithstanding that fact, we love and 
stand by the Constitution. Duty and responsi- 
bility are correlative terms. No political re- 
sponsibility for the existence of slavery in the 
States reachel me, and I have, therefore, no 
political duty to discharge in relation to its ex- 
tinction there. And beyond this, as a citizen 



of Ibe RepuUic, I am bound, in my judgment, 
to respect the local as v,'ell as the Federal rights 
of all its other citizens. To interfere by stealth 
and indirection between the master and slave ; 
to aid or encourage what are termed under- 
ground railroads, or other secret machinery, for 
the violation of those local rights, is a violation 
of my own obligations, and should be irowned 
upon by every loyal citizen. And by, it' possi- 
ble, still more solemn obligations, am I bound 
not to interfere with violence. There is no evil 
with which God, in his anger, has ever visited 
this earth, that will compare, in manifold hor- 
rors, with servile insurrection : and for that rea 
son, among others, do I pray that He, in His 
mercy, in His own good time and way, will re- 
move the evil of slavery from all our borders ; 
but the man who, in the full possession ot his 
mental faculties, goes into a slave State, with 
force and strong hand, to wrest the hondraau 
from his master, and persists in his effort to the 
sacrifice of human life — however unselfish his 
motives, however lofty his courage, however 
Christianlike his fortitude — is guilty or murder; 
and no one, not even the wife of his bosom or 
the child of his old age, can demand, upon any 
principle of human or divine justice, that the 
stern seutence with which the law visits that 
crime should not be executed. 

Nor do I believe it to be at present necessary 
that Congress should endeavor, by prohibit()ry 
legislation, to exclude the system from the Ter- 
ritories which we already possess. I have no 
doubt of the power of Congress so to do 5 but 
it is ofter. neither necessary nor expedient to 
exercise acknowledged powers. I do not con- 
sider the Supreme Court as having made a ju- 
dicial decision upon this subject. Its members 
have expressed a political opinion, not called 
for by the case, which is entitled to the same re- 
spect as a similar opinion uttered by an equal 
number of able, upright, and learned men, in 
any other station would be, and no more. The 
time may come when this power of the Federal 
Legislature will again be called into requisi- 
tion, as it so frequently was during the sixty 
years which succeeded the formation of the 
Government. At present, I see no necessity 
for its exercise. The greater portion of our or- 
ganized Territories is already secure against 
the ingress of slavery. The organic acts which 
called the remainder into jjolitical existence 
provide expressly that such of their Territorial 
laws as shall be disapproved by Congress shall 
become null and void. 

Whenever a Territorial Legislature is mad 
enough or venal enough to enact a slave code, 
I would exercise the power thus conferred upon 
Congress, and annihilate the iniquitous statute. 



In every act for the organization of future Ter- 
ritories, I would incorporate the same clause, 
and execute it in like manner, whenever a sim- 
ilar occasion should arise, i would endeavor 
to restrain that insane lust of dominion which 
is perpetually seeking foreign acquisition, and 
is fast becoming the bane of the Republic. I 
would elect a President of the old Republican 
faith, whose executive and judicial oilicers, 
everywhere, should be governed, in the dis- 
charge of their duties, by fidelity to the Co::sti- 
tution and the laws, as steadily construed and 
enforced for more than sixty years after the 
formation of this Government. 1 would enact a 
Homestead law, which, by the bestowal of 
nnbought titles to the soil, should invite the 
laboring freemen of the United States to lay 
the foundations of civilized society throughout 
all our Territories, under the benign influences 
of universal industry and all-pervading liberty ; 
and if my fellow-citizens of the slaveholding 
States desired it, I would pledge the revenues 
of the Government for the purchase of a region 
beyond our present limits, wherein to colonize 
their surplus servile population, afar from irri- 
tating contact with another and a prouder race. 
And then, sir, I would risk slavery extension ! 

In doing all this, I believe that I should not 
violate any constitutional right of any n^an, or 
class of men, in the Confederacy ; 1 believe 
that I should not prejudice the real interests oi 
any part or section of the country ; I believe 
that I should be doing that which is best for 
the present generation, and which will be best 
for the generations that are to come after us. 1 
should have no apprehension of disunion or re- 
bellion, or civil convulsion of any kind. I know 
that the people of my section are true to the in- 
tegrity of the Republic ; and I believe that tho 
people of all sections are. The mutterings of 
treason, the gasconade of secession, the senseless 
bravado about disunion, do not come from the 
popular heart anywhere. They fall, without 
due reflection perhaps, from the lips of some 
honorable gentlemen who, in the excitement of 
the moment, may mean what they say ; but, 
for the most part, they are the desperate resort 
of the desperate politicians of the Democratic 
party. To meet such extravagance and folly 
with sober argument would be to clothe them 
with a dignity beyond their importance. The 
gentlemen who utter these things profess an 
unwillingness to wait for " overt acts." I do 
not doubt that they will be found just as un- 
willing to commit " overt acts." Common 
sense, I trust, has not yet entirely forsaken 
them. When it shall do so, they may find, too 
late, that it has not forsaken the constitueu- 
ciea which, sent them here. 



PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 

IIEPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. 



HON. PRESTON' KTXG, N. Y., Chairman. 
" J. W. GRIMES, IOWA. 
" L. F. S. FOSTER, COXN. 

On (he pari of the Senate. 
" E. B. WASHBURXE, ILLINOIS. 



HON. JOHN COVODE, PENN., Treasurer 
" E. O. SPAULDIXG, 'N. Y. 
" J. B. ALLEY, MASS. 
" DAVID KIL(iORE, INDIANA. 
" J. L. N. STRATTON, N. J. 

On the pari of the House of Reps. 



The Committee are prepared to furnish the following speeches: 

Hon. II. Wilson, Mass.: Territorial Slave Code. 
" Johu P. Hale, N. H. 
" J. J. Perry, Me. : "Posting the Books be 

tween the North and the South." 
" J. R. Doolittlc, Wis.: The Calhoun Revo- 
lution — Its Basis and its Progress. 



EIGHT I'AOES. 

^""u- ^'- ^J; ^'^'^•'"■'^' -"•'• ^' • ^^--^ of the Country. 
\y. H. Sowrtrd, N. Y.: Rochester Speech. 
(r. A. Orow, Penn. : Free Homes for Free 
Men. 
" Junies Harlan, Iowa: Shall the Territories 

he Africanized ? 
" John Hickman, Penn.: Who have Violated 

Compromises. 
" B. F. Wade, Ohio: Invasion of Harper's 

Ferry. 
" G. W. Scranfon and J. H. Campbell, Penn.: 
The Speakership. 

" ^'n\ ''''^'^' ^^'^■' Afi'lrcss at Cincinnati : 
Colonization and Commerce. 

" Orris S. Ferry, Conn. 

" Abraham Lmcoln, 111. : The Demands of 
the South— The Republican Party Vin- 
dicated. 

" William Windom, Minn.: The Homestead 
Hill — Its Friends and lU Foes. 

" Owen Lovejoy, Illinois : The Fanaticism of 
the Democrat ic Party. 
Lands for the Landless — A Tract. 
The Poor Whites of the South— A Tract. 

SIXTEEN PAGES. 
Hon. Lyman Trumbull, 111.: Seizure of the Ar- 
senals at Harper's Ferry, Va. and Libert .- 
Mo., and iu Vindication of the Republi- 
can Party. 
« B. F. Wade, Ohio: Property in the Terri- 
tories. 
" C. II. Van Wyck, N. Y. : True Democracy- 
History Vindicated. 



Douglas and Popular Sover-i 



Carl Schurz, W^is. 

eignty. 

TWENTY-FOUR PAGES. 
Hon. Jacob Collamer, Vermont. 

THIRTY-TWO PAGES. 
Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. 



GERMAN. 

EIGHT PAGES. 
Hon. G. A. Grow, Penn.: Free Homes for Free 
Men. 
" James Harlan, Iowa: Shall the Territories 

be Africanized? 
" John Hickman, Penn.: Who Have Violated 
Compromises. 
Carl Schurz, Wid.: Douglas and Popular Sover- 
eignty. 

SIXTEEN PAGES. 
Hon. Lyman Trumbull, 111.: Seizure of the Arse- 
nals at Harper's Ferry, Va. and Liberty, 
Mo., and in Vindication of the Republi- 
can Party. 
" W. H. Seward, N. Y.: The State of the 
Country. 
Lands for the Landless — A Tract, 



And all the leading Republican speeches will be published as delivered 
ing^redufed'rke?:''""'' ""^^^^S^' Speeches and Documents will be st^pplied at the follow- 

Eight pages, per hundred, copies free of posta^'e 

Sixteen " <' " <f * ' " " 

Twenty-four " " « ~ ' " " 

Address either of the above Committee. 

GEORGE HARRINGTON, Secretary. 



$0.50 
l.GO 
1.50 



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